Carol movie is being tipped for this year’s Cannes Film Festival glory in France.

The film, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, tells the story of two women having an illicit romance in 1950s New York.

Carol – based on a 1952 novel by Patricia Highsmith, author of The Talented Mr. Ripley – is winning rave reviews for its lead performances.

Cate Blanchett denied speculation suggesting she drew on her own early gay relationships to create the role.

The actress said: “In 2015, the point should be: who cares?”

Carol, directed by Todd Haynes, follows the blossoming relationship between a glamorous married woman (Cate Blanchett) and an impressionable shop girl (Rooney Mara).

Last week, double Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, 46, reportedly admitted to Variety magazine that she had had many female partners.

However, at a news conference in Cannes, the actress was quick to scotch reports of a gay past.

Carol is seen by some critics as a companion movie to Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven, about an illicit romance between a white woman and a black man, also set in the 1950s.